North Macedonia 2021- Vasil with ‘Here I Stand’

In 2019 North Macedonia found their first success in a while sending a message song and they’re at it again:

This is a real mess. Going down the musical theatre route is always a risk and much better attempts than this have underwhelmed. For good measure, a gospel choir and message have been slapped on in. And that message does not come across at all. Who tried to break you and your backing singers? Why? Who is “us”, is the audience included? The lyrics make even less sense if you bother to read them, and everything but the central hook is google translate nonsense. Vasil‘s vocal range in the studio version is good, but there are notes in here for the sake of it making the whole thing even more incoherent.

The vocals all around might be the best part of this, but we’ll need to wait and see on staging. The video was done well in terms of the choir reveal and something similar is recommended. This is not an entry to cheap out and go pre-recorded. Staging on the whole has been a mostly negative affair for the country and it takes more than one well performed ballad to make me less cautious with them.

Hopefully the faux-inspiring lyrics and North Macedonia’s attempt to attach this to some sort of cause won’t lead to the juries getting carried away with this. Still, these more varied genres are harder for jurors to set apart. It’s easy to rank Ireland below Cyprus and Croatia for example, but this is harder to compare which may help it’s chances somewhat.

The televote should already be low here with North Macedonia not having neighbours Albania or strong diaspora countries like Switzerland. This is not a vote grabber and will likely be forgotten about by the time the phone lines open. It’s not impossible for this to qualify, but for now I see it at the bottom end of the semi.

Personal Rating: 1/10 Competitive Rating: 4/10 Early Prediction: Semi One 14th-17th (NQ)